


even more like a lightning rod

by twistedingenue



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Gen, Jane Foster & Darcy Lewis Friendship, Jane Foster is better than you, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Darcy Lewis, Scientist Wrangler Darcy Lewis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-01-30 22:43:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12662949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedingenue/pseuds/twistedingenue
Summary: Months after the events of Civil War, Jane Foster suddenly figures out what side she's on. Darcy's confused, but that's life with Jane on a good day.  Jane's got lightning in her blood and Darcy's got to work to do.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to bluroux for the beta.
> 
> It'll be helpful, eventually, to have seen Thor Ragnarok.

Jane’s face was a tight line in all directions. Eyes closed, lips together, biting down until they white. When she finally opens her face to speak to Darcy, there’s every inch of a storm in her eyes and her lips fill back with blood.

 

“We’re going to have to find new funding,” is all Jane says.

 

But that doesn’t make sense. Jane has been in an enviable position, with her funding coming strings free from a Stark Trust instead of having to compete for smaller and smaller pieces of government funding. They’ve been a lean, mean, mobile science machine.

“What do you mean,” Darcy wants clarification. Jane isn’t always so good with clarification, but she is good with continuing to talk when prompted.

“I refuse to take Stark’s money anymore.” 

This is new. Even with the terrible schism in the Avengers, Jane barely took notice.  
But when Jane decides something, it’s happening. But why? And why now? It’s been months.

And then she notices the box. Neatly packed, a thick sweater on top. And Jane’s anger makes a little more sense. An ex-boyfriend box. All the things he owned in an a box to the left.

“Okay.” Darcy says, trying to sort through the options. This apartment isn’t paid through Stark. Jane has the type of trust fund that allows people call her eccentric rather than weird. It’s enough to keep some sort of roof over her head. So they’ve at least got that covered no matter where they go. “Okay.”

“How could he be so short-sighted?” Jane mutters.

“Is this now a thing against any avenger, or is it just those with Stark?” Darcy asks, still sorting her mental contact list. They burned their bridges with SHIELD and what still remained of them, more because she’s still pissed that they didn’t return her calls. But they’ll need access to unique sets of data and….

“Just this asshole.” Jane answers, the stubbornness starting to set in, that weird glint in her eyes that means there is no turning back. The most Darcy can do is try to steer. “Imagine thinking that your billionaire experience is going to go the same way for anyone else. The people who don’t have connections and secrets on everyone to get them out of the consequences of chicken shit governments.”

Yeah! Power to the people, Jane. “So I can call some of the others, right? I assume you want to leave town.” A good portion of their current lab space is in Stark hands, but it can be packed up and moved in a few hours. They’ve been living their lives as if they could live and work out of an RV for years now.

“Hey wait, if we aren’t taking Stark money, how am I getting paid?” Darcy asks. This is the most important question. There are loans to be paid back. Fancy private school doesn’t pay for itself.  
This shakes Jane out of her trance of stubborn will. “Er, uh…um…maybe you can also find us a place to stay?”

“Yeah okay,” Darcy says, and opens her contacts list to the B’s. For Barton. Because at the least they can park at the farm that she had to find out from Thor existed. She calls. He picks up on the third ring.

“Lewis. What the hell. You don’t call. You don’t write.”

“Like you know how to write to begin with,” Darcy scoffs, “Can I just get to the point of the call or do I need to actually engage in small talk?”

“I do hate small talk.” Clint sighs, urging Darcy to get on with things.

“Jane is,” Jane is so many many things, “Jane’s going through some life changes at the moment. She and Thor are….not she and Thor, and she’s decided to take sides. Against Stark.”

“How are those related?” 

Darcy makes a small groan of agreement, “We need a place to go. And I think Jane needs a place to be of use.”

Silence. For more than a few seconds, the line is quiet. But then she hears Clint suck his breath in, and on the exhale he says, “I’ll meet you. We’ve got a place.”

“Do I need to bring gifts for the kids?” Darcy asks, trying to figure out where they will need to go.

“They’ll always appreciate new things, but not this time. Lewis, are you okay? Are things…do you need help?” Clint is almost never this plainspoken with her. They prefer to talk in sarcasm instead. He’s rushed, and though concerned, a little impatient as well.

“We’re not in danger, at least as far as I know.” But Darcy watches Jane with interest, and she’s shaking with pent up energy. It almost crackles through her, “But something seems off with her.” Not like the usual post-break up moping, no. Jane seems driven. She’s not cutting her hair and hitting the gym, she’s making a stand. She’s grown ethics and morals and purpose.

Well, maybe purpose. Jane doesn’t seem to know what to do with herself. At least not yet. Maybe that’s something Barton can help with. He’s good at lining things up to a target and seeing how the wind blows.

“Right. I’ll text you with an address. Pack light and don’t dawdle, okay?”

“Jane’s half-packed already.” She says and Barton snorts, “Hey Barton, thanks. I owe you one.”

Darcy doesn’t think Clint has hung up. His breath is quiet, but it’s all there. “No actually, you don’t. We’ll fill you in when we get you settled.” And he hangs up for real.

That doesn’t sound ominous at all. But that’s a problem for future Darcy. Present Darcy has to get the inventory checklist, and pack her things. Jane is mucking around in the kitchen, “Jane, none of that belongs to us.” There’s cacophony of clanging as a pile of pans fall onto the floor.  
“Sorry, I’ll just…” Jane’s face peeks over the kitchen island, “Why don’t I pack my room up.”

“Good idea.” Darcy nods and smiles in exasperation. Steering a sinking ship.

In the end, it takes only three hours to get packed into the RV. The apartment doesn’t look empty, it came furnished as a short term rental. But they’ve left a few things that they’d gained over the past few months. A few books, a blender that would take too much power, a line of fairy lights that Darcy always picks up to frame her door. The management company can deal with it.  


And on the kitchen island is a box, labeled “Property of Thor Odinson” and a note to have it delivered care of Tony Stark.


	2. Chapter 2

The rendezvous point is three hours away and in the middle of nowhere, which always seems to be the case when it comes to dealing with Barton. They met in the middle of nowhere. Half the time they talk, it’s because Barton is driving in the middle of nowhere. And now they are meeting up at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere.

“Where are we going?” Darcy says in the doorway of the RV, facing Clint who is in a suspiciously quiet beater pickup truck.

“Sandwich.” Clint answers.

“Not hungry.” 

“Not offering,” Barton nods to Jane, who steps out from the RV, “We’re going to Sandwich.”

“Quakers or Illinois.” Jane asks back and Darcy tries to follow along in bewilderment. 

“Illinois. We needed a quiet place to set up, and there’s enough around to keep ourselves busy.”

Jane smiles, “I could use a horseshoe, I guess. Or wait, it’s closer to Chicago. Italian Beef?”

“Doc Foster, you remain a woman after my own stomach.” Clint presses his hand to his chest. “Hey kiddo, how are you?”

“Trying to remember why I put up with you.”

Clint almost goes for a joke, but catches himself to say, “We’re glad to have you both.” He gestures to a picnic table, “I actually do have sandwiches. Turkey club.” Jane’s eyes widen as if she’s just noticing that she neglected to eat since they started packing. He digs in the passenger seat for a second before handing one over to Jane and holds one out to Darcy.

Darcy shakes her head, “Got anything without—”

“It’s actually turkey bacon. Laura is having concerns about my last lipid panel and my blood pressure. As if that’s going to be what kills me.”

It’s actually very likely that what will kill Barton in the end is massive influx of irony, so yeah, lipid panels and turkey bacon is a good idea. They share the sandwiches and Clint grabs Darcy’s phone and bypasses her security code. Spies. He programs in a an address.

“Illinois is good. I can work with Fermilab. Oh! One of my cohorts is there, I have an in…” Jane says, working through logistics out loud.

Barton though, he keeps looking at Jane as they eat. Jane’s always worth a look, but Clint isn’t exactly subtle with his action. He prefers to run his mouth in a patter to distract and deceive, but is remarkably straightforward with what he does. And what he’s doing is looking at Jane.

Darcy looks at Jane. Jane looks like Jane, how she’s always been. Her clothes are a bit too big, her hair a bit too messed, her mind moving so fast that she never seems still. But that’s Jane. That’s how Jane has always been, that’s not new for Clint. 

He eats and he plays with Darcy’s phone until she demands it back. It’s about a six hour drive, “I’m gonna be behind you the whole way. Y’all aren’t in trouble are you? Anyone tailing you?”

“No?” Darcy says, confirming the answer with Jane, “No, not at all.”

“That’s good. I’ll be close and you call if anything seems off. We couldn’t spare anyone to be a car ahead of you.” Clint looks off back at the interstate, “I just drove that road, so I can be a little less paranoid.”

“Who are you fighting with now?”

“Well, that depends on who Steve has pissed off this week.” He gives Darcy a look that says he’ll fill them in on the whole picture later. Rest Stations are weird places, but they aren’t secure. You never know who is around, that rumpled and road-bogged transient may be a world-renowned astrophysicist, “You never can tell. I’ve never met a man that was just so good at getting on everyone’s nerves.”

“Including yours?”

Clint rolls his eyes, “We should get going. Signal if you need a stop.”

Jane looks up, “Okay, but do you have another sandwich?”

“Jane, oh my…ugh, let’s go raid the vending machine first.” Fifteen minutes and ten dollars later, Jane and Darcy have enough sugar and caffeine to fell an elephant, have made the required pit stop and Darcy climbs into the driver’s seat.

It’s twilight, and Jane immediately starts dozing in and out. She wakes long enough to eat a bag of Skittles, change the radio station and say, “Whenever you need a break, I can take over.”

Darcy starts to look at Jane, tries to figure out whatever it was that Clint kept finding over and over again, and she just doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary. 

 

* * *

Jane wakes straight up about four hours into the drive, just awake like a shot, and pulling out her tablet in a mad rush. “Do you remember any of the numbers from that anomaly two days ago?” Jane asks.

“Not off the top of my head,” Darcy sing-songs, “I memorize song lyrics not random data points.”

“Fine, I’ll put in placeholders. Do you remember where —”

“Europe? Northern part? Other than that no.”

“It was just so weird.” Jane mutters, “I’d never seen so much energy pinpointed in one place but yet, nothing seemed to come of it. Almost like.” Jane trails off, “Never mind. It can’t possibly be him. He’s not even on Earth again.”

Ahh. Okay. That’s it. Jane keeps skirting around what actually happened between her and Thor, other than he don’t come around here no more. Darcy tries to remember when they were last in the same zip code, and comes up pretty short. “When exactly did you two break up?”

“About a month ago.” Jane says, already back into her work, “Over the damn phone. We’d been in one place for five months with no travel, and he….Well, I may be busy but I am not goddamn Penelope and I’m not going to wait around with my legs crossed.”

“For one thing, it’s totally the wrong mythology.” Darcy snarks.

“And then, I don’t know, I woke up and everything was wrong and it all needed to change. We needed to change. I need to change. Do you want me to drive?”

Darcy agrees, and signals at the next exit for a pit stop and shift change. Barton stacks several large cups together and fills it with coffee without speaking. His old man grump face is firmly in place. He must have driven hours already, and they’ve been driving straight. And the scenery isn’t much to keep anyone occupied. It’s corn, punctuated by soybeans, and the occasional Dairy Queen.

Darcy doesn’t remember falling asleep. But Jane set up a voice memo and just started talking at her phone and the last couple hours are a haze and she really only wakes up when Jane pokes her repeatedly and Barton opens the side door. She nearly falls, it’s only the seat belt that keeps her in her seat.

“Are you that tired kid?” Clint asked, “I hit a second wind. It’s terrible, I hate it. I won’t sleep until tomorrow. But I think Wanda and Scott were supposed to clean out some rooms for you two.”

“Are you going to dad me now?” Darcy mumbles, unclicking her seat belt. “Call me squirt and ruffle my hair?”

“My poppa would have grabbed his belt for that sort of sass,” Clint mumbles, “Damn good thing I’m a lot better than him. Get out, come in, let’s get you settled for tonight.”

Night fell while Darcy was zoned out, and they’ve pulled up to what appears to be a Survival Prepper’s wet dream. A relatively isolated and fortified compound. There’s not another hint of a building as far as she can see. Which, for it being a cloudy night, isn’t very far. She grabs her bag, and follows Clint out from the metal carport. Clint guides them both inside into an exceptionally bright kitchen, where Wanda and Sam Wilson are slicing up a few apples, talking softly between them.

They’ve all only met a few times. Back when the Avengers were a thing, before Jane went on her speaking tour, when Thor did not want to leave her side — they went to things. Parties, lunches, even the occasional science jam session. Darcy didn’t always go, she didn’t like being a third wheel, but no one is a stranger to her at least.

“Hey,” she says with a little wave, “Rough night?”

“Not for us,” Sam answers, “looks like it might have been for you.”

“Drive wasn’t too bad.” Darcy answers.

“Yeah, well, you should have been on mine,” Rogers says walking in the door behind her. 

Darcy turns over her shoulder, startling slightly. No one has heard much of Rogers, except in the way that you often hear about distant explosions. 

He’s grown a beard out, his hair is starting to darken with length and gets in the way of his eyes, which are beginning to sink into gaunt hollows. And his uniform. It isn’t a uniform. This is not Captain America anymore.

“We’re not running a bed and breakfast here,” Rogers says, “So I hope you can pull your weight.” He nudges past Darcy and through the kitchen, turning into a staircase, if the creaking steps are any indication of the floor plan

“Oh good. We got Grumpy Cap back,” Sam says, rolling his eyes and scooping up a few apple slices onto a place, “My turn for debrief. You check twitter and see what he’s destroyed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm working on this as a secondary project to a long one shot I'm writing, so updates on this may be slow. But fear not, subscribe. I don't leave things undone.


	3. Chapter 3

Darcy wakes up cold. Too cold for her comfort, and her feet hit the wood floors and she winces. It’s even colder. She wraps the blanket around her and hunts around the hastily made-up room. The windows aren’t leaking air, but the chill is old and settled. It takes a few minutes, but she finds the closed off heating vent and flips it to open. This part of the house must have been closed off for some time. 

In the morning light, the house is perfectly middling. It’s not old, it’s not new. The walls are thick and builder’s beige, a turnover paint job that must have been done to make the house sell.  
Darcy is here now. Her things are here, Jane is here, and this is where her reality is going to take her. There’s no use fighting change. She doesn’t have to like it, she just has to accept it. If she wanted out of this life, she could go get a job at a Starbucks in Idaho, and not worry about the big bads in the world until it’s too late. She could do that. 

Darcy doesn’t do that. She gets dressed, she pours cereal into a plastic baggie to carry around and munch on while she looks for Jane. It seems like no one is around or awake, but it’s clear into mid-morning. Everyone did seem to be up rather late last night. She follows the main hallway past the kitchen, and the rooms transition from bedrooms to rooms with less domestic usage. Some labeled —two bathrooms and a gym — another with more computers and monitoring systems that she should investigate later, but the first with a light and soft mutterings.  
That’s Jane. It’s always Jane if there is muttering. Jane isn’t always loud, that’s just at her peak intensity.Her background level is nearer to a pitter-patter. A stream of little noises, and clicks and clacks, all very comforting to Darcy at this point.

“Oh hey, you’re up. Great.” Jane says, “I’m trying to track something…”

“Good morning to you too,” Darcy rolls her eyes. She hadn’t even made it into the room yet, how on earth did Jane know it was her. It could have been anyone. But it’s Jane, and they’ve been together for years at this point, and really, Darcy probably could point Jane out a hundred yards away in a crowd.

“And I don’t think I’ve gotten everything set up correctly, can you check the settings on…” Jane points. Darcy hands Jane her bag of cereal and sits her butt down to work.

Ten minutes later, and Jane is right. There is something off, an energy reading that’s coming in so faint that it’s being filtered out as background noise. But it’s also new. Darcy doesn’t like new. New means trouble on the horizon, so she spends a half hour trying to figure out how to screen for the noise.

“Good, that’s good Darcy, thank you.”

“Jane, what are we doing here?”

“I haven’t really talked to everyone yet, but I’m pretty damn useful. We’ll figure it out.”  
Darcy launches herself in the rolling chair, spinning to Jane. Why must the woman be so smart but also so very dense. “No, Jane. What are we really doing here. The freakout over Stark, yeah sure, okay, we’re all allowed delayed reactions. Though, if you want me to walk you through some different arguments and theories about what happened, I’d be happy too condense the internet speculation for you.” Darcy takes a breath so she can finish, “But what’s really going on?”

Jane goes very still, frozen for more than a few seconds, “I think there’s something wrong with me.” She turns to Darcy, but her face is serene and unworried, “Or maybe not with me but through me.”

“Jane that very literally makes no sense. Something is wrong through you?”Darcy asks warily, and Jane grabs the edge of Darcy’s chair and draws her in suddenly.

Her voice is strong and intense, but never louder than a conversation. “The Aether, Darcy, it pulsed through me. It mingled with my blood, through my lungs and heart and brain. It was killing me, but I think it must have changed me.” Jane practically vibrates in the space she inhabits, gleaming brighter, “I feel immense, I feel like there’s something still pulling and pushing around in my body.”

Darcy slumps back in her chair, “Jane, who have you told about this. Did you tell Thor?”

Jane shakes her head, “It didn’t feel like this then. It built slowly, but the past few days…I wish Dr Banner was still here. I think he’d be the only one to understand.” Jane fades for a moment, stricken gray, before her internal motor roars again, “But it’s more now, ripping through me where it had been steady and I needed to be. I needed to be here, where I know that whatever happens, I won’t be contained.”

But someone’s got to be willing to put her down if needed. It does explain a few things. Stark put Jane’s teeth on edge. He’s brilliant, but he’s not an academic, and yeah, sure there’s respect, but his priorities are different than hers. Eventually, he needs to make money, and who knows when he’d come calling for something practical. And if Jane’s research is Jane herself. They had to leave. They had to.

“Wait wait wait, you said the past few days…” Darcy turns back to the screen. The noise, the noise, when did it start?

Jane’s jaw drops and then she grins, “Don’t let anyone tell you you aren’t brilliant, Darcy.” And shoves Darcy’s rolling chair out of the way to take over the spot. Well then, everything seems back to normal if Jane is forgetting about being polite and how personal space works as a concept. 

Knowing that Jane is about to throw herself into a science trance, Darcy is at a loss for what to do about the day. If it were a few days ago, she’d be starting the day dealing as an administrator, setting priorities for Jane to deal with, scheduling, reports to Stark’s admins on current research, that sort of thing. The things that you have to do as part of a bureaucratic corporation. And now, she has to …check Jane’s email. Which isn’t empty, but it also isn’t much to work with. Stark sent a little sad face in response to Jane’s resignation and HR sent termination paperwork. And precious little else. Stark had…he had just let people go where they felt, something Darcy didn’t believe could ever happen.

Breakfast then.

Except then, Darcy hears the plastic bag open, and chewing. So maybe not breakfast either. Eh, her fault for leaving it in open view.

There’s still no movement in the house when Darcy leaves Jane to herself.She walks gingerly, trying to be quiet. It’s just that it isn’t really that early anymore. There should be more happening in this house. From the rumors, this team is out and about all of the time. She couldn’t go more than a few days without one of the reports coming into Jane’s email, compiled by some of the former SHIELD employees, and sent to those who had been involved in that sort of thing before.

Darcy comes back to the kitchen and sits at the table, uncomfortable with the stillness and the abrupt change of everything. She’d had to search for the cereal and the plastic bags earlier, she doesn’t know where things go and it’s not her place to reorganize. It’s not her place.

Darcy has moved around with Jane a lot. And most of the time, it’s without any doubt or hesitation. They’ve discussed Darcy moving on from time to time, or settling in somewhere so that Darcy could start a grad program, or broaden her job experience in her field, but Darcy just …she can’t let go of what they are doing together.

Maybe it’s time to let it go. Get Jane settled here, where Darcy knows she’s safe and there’s people to look after her. 

Well, at the least, Darcy should get Jane through whatever mess she’s in now. Maybe start some applications.

“Why are you sitting in the dark?” There’s a problem with being in a house of operatives, and it is that they are sneaky motherfuckers. You’d think someone Roger’s size would have appropriately loud footsteps, but nope. Of course not. That would make sense.

“Nothing else was on, didn’t seem right,” Darcy says. Rogers turns on the light, and it’s too bright too quick, and she squints against it. It’s enough to jolt her into honesty, “I don’t know how things work around here. Maybe you have a system I shouldn’t disturb.”

“Uh….no.” He looks uncomfortable, “No schedule.” No, he doesn’t look uncomfortable, he looks guilty.

“ Are you saying that because you don’t have one, or because you aren’t around enough to know if you have one?” Darcy asks, because she’s got a theory, and it could be that Rogers is trying to outrun himself. 

Rogers doesn’t change his expression one bit, not an eyebrow out of place. Not even a blink. He’s made himself out of stone, “I’m going to make some breakfast, would you like some?”

Well, if he’s not going to talk, Darcy’s not going to force it. “Sure.”

“Eggs?” he says, picking a pan out of nearby cabinet.

“Scrambled, if you could.”

That gets a little snort, “I can do scrambled or hard boiled. Never much got the hang of anything else.”

“Same,” Darcy laughs, “I just …eggs are finicky creatures. Get distracted and you’ve ruined everything.”

It’s a few minutes of not quite comfortable silence. This is the most that Darcy’s ever really spoken with Rogers. Jane doesn’t mingle too much, and Thor wasn’t always in the thick of activity. And Jane had her own work to do. Darcy knew Clint best and the rest — well, they knew her face. What else can you ask for?

But then there’s eggs, and the normal pleasantries surrounding them. But finally he says, “I think I screw up the day to day around here.”

“Then maybe you need to be around a little more.” Darcy says. “I should probably finish unpacking. And I think the heating vents need to be opened up around the house.”

“You’re staying?” He says, surprised.

“Yes? Why wouldn’t I be?”

“It’s just — Thor’s gone. Foster is safe here. Why—”

“Of course,” Darcy interrupts, “Why would I need to be here. Why wouldn’t I want to be, if Thor isn’t around and Jane is taken care of. I don’t have a desire to do my part without them. Obviously. Of course.”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed,” Steve says, with complete sincerity.

“You aren’t the first. Shit, my parents don’t get it either. I’ve watched everything about the world and what I thought was possible crumble around me. Alien machines controlled by a shithead with adopted daddy issues destroyed a town and that wasn’t the weirdest thing to happen that week.” Fork down, Darcy runs her fingers through her hair, “The way I see it, you choose to do two things; you run away or you run into the rubble.” And oh no, she’s never going to leave here, never going to leave Foster or go to grad school, because her place is here, “I saved dogs, you know.”

“What?”

“Dogs. In New Mexico. Look, I’m not you with the muscles, or the aim, or the shocking propensity to use violence and cause massive structural damage to buildings and governments. But the destroyer came knocking and I used what time we had to evacuate to make sure dogs and cats got out safe.”

“So you run into the rubble.” He says, his words muted by thought, not volume. 

“I’m going to do what I can.” Darcy’s done trying to fool herself. If she does go back to school, tries to get a new job, it’s going to be in the service of staying on the inside of this whole mess. “Aw shit,” she says, dropping her head, “Ugh, I don’t wanna. This life is hard. But I have to do what I can.”

“Your mouth to god’s ears, Lewis.” Steve says, “I bet I could find bacon too. Clint tries to hide it behind the salad greens.”


	4. Chapter 4

It takes a little doing and a few days, but Darcy gets everyone into a single room.  From everything she’s gathered, the compound is used as a shared base of operations, a place to lay their heads and reload before going out doing something else foolish. Perhaps together, perhaps not. Scott and Clint live here now, with different levels of acceptance. But they have others to worry about and keep safe. Wanda stays because here is a safe place.

Steve, technically, is a wanted man. Countries, organizations, and very powerful men all very much want to know where he is, and how to stop him. It’s amazing no one has tracked him down yet. And Sam? He’s burned his bridges, so he goes where Steve goes.

Jane needs a place to figure out what’s happening to her. And Darcy needs a cause.

“So what have you brought to its knees this week, Rogers?” Wanda asks, no smile, no mirth, just facts.

“Two HYDRA bases. Mexico.” He answers.

“I’m going to assume that was two HYDRA bases in Mexico, and not like, the country of Mexico.” Scott adds, “I would have seen that one on the news.”

“True story, there are such things as Mexican Nazis now.” Sam says, shaking his head, “I thought at first it had to be a joke, because Nazi’s are not entirely friendly to minorities of any sort. But eventually, Nazi’s are going to Nazi on them as well.”

“You said Nazi like, four times in two sentences.” Darcy says.

“Yeah, it was beginning to sound like a fake word.” Sam admits, “Anyway. Mexican Nazi’s, a thing until they aren’t white enough, and we took care of them.”

“Anyone else do anything exciting?” Steve tries to wrest control from the hell that the meeting was descending towards.

“I found more strays,” Clint says, “They followed me home, can I keep them?”

“Clint.” Jane says, “We called you. I believe that makes you a taxi.”

The table starts to levitate, and Darcy looks at Wanda in surprise. The woman rolls her eyes and slams the table back down. “Let’s go around and discuss goals for this week. I have discovered some new depths to my powers, and I need someone to help me. Dr Foster, would you mind?”

“Me?” Jane sputters, “Uh, sure. I mean, yes. Of course I can. And I’m working on identifying a power signature, but I should only need Darcy for that.”  
  
“Well, I guess that answers what I’m going to be doing.”

The men go into their work. This week will see Clint and Scott heading out to do a little information gathering, ostensibly because Clint is still technically a spy and Scott can just be tiny and pretend to be dandruff and listen really well. Steve and Sam are going to spin their wheels until they get back. It’s an enforced down week, and Darcy is pretty sure it’s for their benefit.

The meeting devolves into amiable chit chat and loose organization. Darcy sits back, taking them all in, slotting them into place. Every time she scans the room though, she sees Wanda’s eyes dart away from Jane. It’s not guilt, it’s puzzlement, it’s figuring out a problem. Darcy sees that look on Jane a dozen times a day, the moments before a breakthrough.

The men ease their way out of the kitchen, breaking up the meeting, leaving the women sitting around the table. Jane noticed Wanda noticing too, and her silence, waiting out the chattering men, is as much of a challenge as it is a tactic.  Wanda watches as Sam leaves the room last, heading towards a workshop space to do preventative maintenance on his wings.

She speaks when there is no one else that can hear them, “Why can I feel you?”

“Excuse me?” Jane says, taken aback. Whatever Jane was thinking, this wasn’t it. “What do you mean?”

“I can feel you, like I can feel my own body.” Wanda says, and Darcy is forever an adolescent and snorts, “Maybe that’s not the right wording then.”

“No, sorry. I’m just immature.”

“Maybe explain it a bit more?” Jane says, ears perking up, eyes brightening, ready to get lost in observation.

“You know where your body begins and ends, right? It’s a perception of the space you take up. I know where I am. But, when you are here, near me, I can also feel where you are. The shape that you take up. It’s floating in my mind the same way I float in mine.” Wanda tries to explain and she twists in frustration, like she can’t express what she means to express.  A language barrier, maybe, but it may also be something that no one has words for.

“Like situational awareness? Like when you fight, can you feel the other people?” Darcy asks. “Do you know where Sam and Steve are, for instance?”

“It’s not the same feeling.” Wanda says dismissively, “That’s a physical feeling, pattern and tactics. This is…it’s not that. I can see you, and I can feel you. It is…it’s like how I knew my brother, near the end. It was different after the procedures, deeper, than what we’d always have. But then, I could tell who he was and then, I could not.”

Darcy reaches out for a moment, but Wanda doesn’t reach back.

“Anyone else?”  Jane continues without regard for Wanda’s moment of grief here.

“Yes,” Wanda says without hesitation, “Vision.”

“Oh.” Darcy says, “Oh shit. Shit.” She picks up speed just repeating that over again as Jane and Wanda both look at her dumbfounded. “Okay, okay, okay. Your brother? Is an outlier but should not be forgotten. So what’s the common link between Jane and Vision?”

Wanda shrugs but Jane looks out with her eyes unfocused, “You think she’s feeling the Aether?”

“Doesn’t it make sense?” Darcy asks.

“Do I know to what you are referring?” Wanda asks.

“I was, for a short while, a vessel for the Aether. Thor told me it was part of something greater, an infinity stone. I no longer have it in me, and the Asgardians took it elsewhere for safe keeping.” Jane explains.

“And Jane hasn’t been feeling all that well lately. And you can feel her. Jane, I don’t think it’s all gone from you at all. It changed you.”

“Humans aren’t meant to contain the power of something like the Aether,” Jane echoes, her mind working and her mouth moving, “And it needed a host. So it made me a little more suitable for habitation. At least until it would have killed me. That’s what parasites do.” She moves her head in agitation, “Where’s a biologist when you need one? I was never good with any sort of science that…squishes.”

“You think—”

“Yes I think. Even if you get rid of a parasite, they still do their damage. If this is hurting me then….”

“Change the game.” Wanda interrupts, holding her hands out in front of the other women. “It changed you to hold power. Maybe to stop it hurting, you need to change what you can hold.”

“If you have something that Jane can hold, I’m all ears. Can you spare a bit of power, slip it in with her coffee?” Darcy snorts, but Jane and Wanda are already both staring at each other, curious.

Jane holds out her hand, “Come into my parlor, Miss Witch, let’s play with with your powers.”

Oh no. No. This is not a good idea. Jane rushing into things with that face and abandoning all caution to her curiosity drive never, never, leads to good things. Okay, maybe Thor was a marginally good thing, all things considered. But how did this whole Aether shit happen in the first place. Jane Foster. Her tombstone is going to be a cat. That curiosity killed. But before Darcy can raise her objections, Jane and Wanda are gone, nothing but footsteps, and Darcy is faced with an eternal struggle. Be sane, rational, and talk Jane back to the ground. Or. Or she can follow Jane.

Ah hell, whatever Jane is going to do is probably going to be a lot more fun than worrying about Jane. Darcy turns on her heel and walks with purpose to the lab.

 

* * *

“Has anyone ever measured what you do when you glow?” Jane’s asking as Darcy strolls in. That’s what Jane’s calling it. Glowing.

“Yes. But I’ll be honest, I didn’t much understand the specifics when Stark would ramble. I’ve always been more interested in expanding my skill rather than the spreadsheets. I manipulate energy, and can manipulate thought patterns.”

“Energy and thought patterns aren’t all that different. It’s just energy moving in your brain. Signals and impulses. How much have you worked with that side of your powers?”

Wanda pales, her large eyes receding into hollows, “I haven’t. Not much. I —it’s not a weapon I want to use.”

“You realize that whatever it is you want to try is going to involve that sort of manipulation, right?” Darcy says, concern mounting — for Wanda, not for Jane. Jane deserves whatever happens, Jane should know better. Wanda, Darcy doesn’t know well enough to say if she deserves the full Foster experience. She’ll push everyone elses boundaries because Jane abadoned her own away years ago. For Science.

Wanda grins through dark eye, “Well, I do need to practice somehow. No one else lets me into their head. I don’t wonder why.”

Darcy longs to be structure to this chaos. It’s funny. Everywhere else she’s ever been, she’s always been viewed as the strange one, the disrupter and chaotic element. Too sharp, and too easy with her words. But here with Jane, she fits. Because it’s never been about causing the trouble, but recognizing it when it’s there, giving it a name, and acknowledging it. She never avoided it, and it made other people uncomfortable. But now she can do what is important; when you give trouble space to be, you can build a fence around it.

“So how does this work?” Darcy asks, “Hold out your hands and let energy build between you? I played that when I was a kid and thought I had magical powers.”

“Did you?” Jane asks, amused.

“Nah, but I was really good with the power of suggestion.”

“I’m not sure,” Wanda says and continues in a strangely formal tone, “But your idea has merit. Will you please hold out your hand?”

Jane extends her hand out to Wanda, palms up. Wanda holds hers close to her chest, a red glow building in intensity. After a moment, Wanda looks at Jane for permission. Jane bites her lips and nods in silence.

Wanda takes Jane’s hand, acting before she can hesitate. The glow envelopes Jane’s hand stubbornly clinging to her skin. She smiles weakly “I don’t feel anything,” Jane says, “Well, it does tingle.”

“That’s how it always feels.” Wanda frowns, releasing Jane’s hand. “Did it feel like you could hold it?”

“I don’t know what you mean. The feeling was just there, it only existed.” Jane says and Wanda explains something that frankly, goes way over Darcy’s head, because Wanda says something esoteric and feeling and Jane translates it into practical science. Something she can touch and understand.

“Take that feeling and pull it in.”

Jane looks dubious. Darcy looks dubious. Wanda knows it, “There’s a teenager who can make pizzas appear by wishing really loudly.”

“That’s an amazing super power and the first I wish I actually had.” Darcy says and Jane holds her hands out again, giving Darcy A Look. Yep, a Look. Someone around here has to keep things in perspective.

Wanda passes the strange red glow over to Jane again. And Wanda lets go between one breath and the next. And it stays. The little cloud, no defined structure or edges, stays on Jane’s hands and spreads to a thinness over her arm. “Now draw it in.”

Jane squints in concentration, constantly holding her breath awkwardly, until something shifts, and the energy radiates from within her body. Her eyes open wide, large and proud, as it swirls within her skin, spreading onto her shoulders and flushing her chest.

Darcy’s heart just about beats out of her own chest as Jane mumbles in her busy now, must think out loud that she thinks she can just….

Jane clasps her hands together with a clap, and then slowly, pulls them apart with red ropes between them, like taffy. Raw and wild, almost crackling with potential.

Darcy turns quickly, setting anything they have into recording data. They’ve never much rigged up their own lab for this, but Darcy tries, tries, and tries to tune everything to this room, these coordinates. Every second counts as Jane struggles to hold it together without ripping herself apart. Or maybe drowning herself, because Jane looks more like she’s in shock, her head dipping below the waves of reality.

Jane holds her breath for too long, and starts to shake, and buckle in her seat. Wanda lays her hands on Jane’s shoulder, then draws her in, increasing the contact, breaking the energy strands from completing the circuit in Jane’s body. Jane exhales loudly and gasps for air, a crackling noise in her throat.

“Please tell me you got that,” she gaps, ragged and feral, turning her eyes to Darcy.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Times are rough y'all for the writing creative juices. I am continuously working on this and I never leave a WIP undone. So just bear with me. You can always keep tabs on me at my [tumblr](http://twistedingenue.tumblr.com)


	5. Chapter 5

So what they have now is a conundrum. Jane and Wanda sit a few yards away from each other, opposite sides of Wanda’s room. Wanda is on her bed, engulfed amongst pillows, and builds an intricate braid of energy in the air. Once complete, she directs it past Darcy and over to Jane. And Jane catches it in the palm of her right hand and directs it up her arm and around her neck, stretching it down the left arm, until she holds both ends of the braid.

The conundrum is that Jane can’t create the energy. She can hold, manipulate, direct, fling, whatever she wants with the energy, but there’s no coaxing any sort energy from Jane herself. There’s no generation, Jane just works like an exceptionally talented battery.

But still, it’s amazing. Darcy kinda wonders if Jane wasn’t changed so much as ignited. The Aether worked through her, but it set off a chain reaction, triggered by something innate within Jane. Something just waiting for the right spark. She could have gone her whole life not knowing that something like this was possible. Just like Wanda and her brother.

Or the serum that let Steve become Captain America.

Darcy tries to focus. There’s all sorts of data that needs to be organized, so that Jane can look through it with her big beautiful brain. She’s already flagged a specific sequence that keeps popping up. An energy signature, maybe, but persistent. It shows up at regular intervals for a moment, and then gone again. Darcy can’t pin it to any specific cause. But it has to be an effect of something.

“I wish Thor was here,” Jane says, and when Darcy looks over, Jane is wrapped the pulsing energy, an aura around her. Darcy raises her eyebrows and Jane says in response, “Not like…that. No. But…he might have had some insight on what this is, and how it works.”

“I think you are making it work now,” Wanda says.

“Well, yes. On a practical level. But how does it work? This has to be an entirely new field of physics and I don’t know where to begin!”

“And Thor could explain that to you?” Wanda asks kindly because Jane’s wonder is giving away to frustration. And it’s causing her aura to pulse faster, and it crackles.

“No. Not at all. But he’d know something of it, just as we get science in the classroom. It’s broken down into small bites, and often too simplistic and outright wrong later on, but even that’s enough to start with.” Jane visibly shakes herself, and the energy moves with her, “I mean, you have some idea of how your phone works, even if you don’t know how in depth. But I don’t even have that,” a crackle of electricity, and Jane picks up a blob and holds it in her hand, “with this.” And she throws it to the ground.

It’s a damn good thing someone reinforced Wanda’s room. Probably for similar reasons, because the energy becomes a weapon in that moment, turning into a white-blue mess as it hits the ground and spreads out. 

None of them will be proud of it, but all three shriek and jump up, visibly shocked. The energy sinks into the floor, the carpet burning itself out rapidly.

“That could have been bad.” Jane says with a tremor of shock.

“Ya think?” Darcy replies, already hearing the telltale sound of large men running in the hallway.

They have to be an interesting sight. If you didn’t count the carpet, they are just three ladies having a little slumber party. With science. And magic. None of which they’ve said anything about to the exceedingly muscle bound set who also live in the compound. Roger’s the first one through the door, and he was nice enough to at least open it first instead of breaking it down.

Wanda waves, “Hi Steve.”

“Do you wanna see a party trick?” Darcy adds, hoping that humor will help diffuse the tension. Or because she’s always been a little bad about appropriate reactions in any given situation. It’s a problem. She doesn’t really plan to fix it.

“What…”

“I’m a battery powered energy rifle.” Jane deadpans, shock having given way to her standard level of inappropriate commentary, “I’m a little concerned that I may have to register that sort of firearm somewhere.”

“No. Pretty sure I fought against us having to do that.” He says, “How much do I want to know?”

“Loaded question; you want to know everything.” Wanda replies.

“Which is difficult because we know nothing.” Darcy says. “Other than Jane is very clumsy with her borrowed superpowers.”

The rest of the house follows behind them, narrowly avoiding a comical pileup. Disappointing, really. They only have to explain the situation once, Steve only has to tell them once that they should have told him about this sooner, and Scott only has the muscle his way into the room once to become one with Jane’s dataset. Darcy is surrounded by nerds. 

Nerds and jocks. Sam looks a little crestfallen that nothing is actively on fire, while still relieved that nothing is actively on fire. Jocks, man, Jocks with a conscious.

She’s also surrounded by the sheer bulk that is Steve Rogers as Captain America and walked out of the room and down to the kitchen.

“You should have said something.” Steve says like he’s gearing up for a conversation. It’s disarming. Darcy was expecting the dulcet tones of a good Cap yelling session. But no. He’s calm. Not like deceptively calm, but actual calm. “That’s the sort of information we need to have in this house in order for things to work.” He looks around the kitchen, familiar ground, “Do we want to make food? Does the energy thing make Jane hungry?”

“You’re the mom friend aren’t you?” Darcy asks, a smile easing her mood, “Do you make sure everyone has their seatbelts on too?”

“Nope, just looking for an excuse to eat. Ma always said I had a hollow leg and it’s even more true now. And sometimes Wanda is ravenous after her energy training.”

“She’s fine.”

“She’s not,” Steve says, “She’s a battery powered energy rifle and we don’t know why.”

“How are you not freaking out. I’m still freaking out about it and I’ve been watching it happen.” Darcy fidgets with her hair, and wants to look anywhere other than at Steve, “I can’t do anything about it and Jane’s going to wind up almost dying again. Things like this don’t have good endings.”

“It can.” Steve argues, and motions for Darcy to look at him, “In that room is a woman is a survivor of human experimentation. I’m in front of you, and there’s... Survivors are all around you. Jane has more fight in her than most people. We won’t give up on her and neither will you.”

“Not everyone is as lucky. How many have died chasing the results from the serum that made you? How many died before Wanda and Pietro? How many? What happens when her fight runs out? When the Aether that’s still changing her ….reaches its course? The energy signature alone I’ve…” Darcy suddenly slows her speech and stares off into the back of her own mind and recollection, “never seen….no….”

Darcy feels hungry. Not that sort of hungry where she needs to eat, but she needs to share, needs others to understand the connection she’s made, but she can’t quite put it into words. There’s a compulsion, as she struggles for words. She slaps against the table, her chest, and hell she’s close enough, Steve’s chest. “There’s a link! Between Jane and that weird energy reading. An undercurrent. A not-Earth undercurrent!” 

Darcy does a stupid thing. She thumps against Steve’s chest again and kisses him. Quick and unthinking, but a kiss nonetheless. “Oh shit, sorry, sorry. I’ve apparently osmosis’ed the science makes you socially stupid thing and…”

Steve laughs with his lips on hers. It’s a much lighter kiss, still tentative, his hands still on the countertop — waiting to see if they’d be needed. 

“Please hold that thought,” Darcy pleads, “I need to talk with Jane and we can come back to how fantastic that was and also unexpected and….” Steve is all very interesting and very good and Darcy is going to give herself a damn high five later because she seems to have a chance at Captain America. Or The Superhero-Formally-Known-As-Captain America, and that’s going to need a lot of mental processing time.

But right now, science. Jane needs her, because this could be important, this could be the breakthrough that Jane needs and maybe Jane won’t start down a path that is going to end up with putting her six feet under, felled by an intergalactic viscosity.

Darcy starts walking, but stops short, “Wait. Wait. You’ll come with us, right? The moment I tell Jane, she’s going to want to leave. Like, the absolutely moment. Will you come with?” She’s nervous, her stomach making a quick, uneasy churn, because what if, what if there’s a reason they are being drawn there. Not a trap, but rejoining a death sentence.

But Jane will go. She’ll weight her options in seconds, and choose the one that involves the most risk and the biggest rewards. And Darcy doesn’t do anything by halves either. Where Jane goes, she will follow again and again to Jane’s purpose and cause. Where Jane goes, Darcy will follow. What Jane researches, Darcy will too. 

And Jane’s face when Darcy tells her, that slow moving brightness that steels when it reaches her eyes, that’s how Darcy knows she’s making the right decision.

**Author's Note:**

> For fannish love, writing updates on this and other fic in progress, you can follow me at [my tumblr!](http://twistedingenue.tumblr.com)


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